Numbers 10 Summary

God commands Moses to make two silver trumpets to be blown by the priests, establishing specific signals for assembling the congregation, directing the march of the camps, calling to war, and marking sacred feast days and new moon offerings. On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, the cloud lifts from the tabernacle and Israel sets out from the wilderness of Sinai toward the wilderness of Paran, with each tribal division marching in its divinely prescribed order under its named leader, and the Levitical clans carrying the tabernacle and the sanctuary in sequence. Moses appeals to his kinsman Hobab the Midianite to accompany Israel as a guide through the wilderness, and the ark of the covenant leads the three-day journey while the cloud of the LORD overshadows the camp by day. As the ark moves forward Moses cries out for the LORD to scatter His enemies, and when it rests he calls for the LORD to return to the many thousands of Israel.